Brush Up on Your Culinary Skills This Weekend

Food is delicious, but only if it's well-prepared. If your culinary skills are lacking, or you could stand to improve, take a little time this weekend to learn some new tips, tricks, and skills to help you cook and bake a whole lot better.

Start with Some Great Recipes

There's no point in cooking anything yourself if it's going to suck, so you ought to have some great recipes. Although Lifehacker is not a recipe blog, we've shown you how to make a lot of great things. We even have a compilation of the 10+ dishes everyone should know how to make, including some of our own favorite recipes. If you're a fan of fast food, however, and would like to learn how to make some of your favorites at home, we've got 10 great fast food recipes you can replicate yourself. Outside of our collection, Gojee is a great place to find a lot of great options. So is Epicurious, How2Heroes, and Cookthink.

Another way to dig up a lot of great recipes is with your smartphone. Check out our favorite recipe and cooking apps for Android and iPhone for some great options.

Effortlessly Prep Your Ingredients

The joy of cooking doesn't come from peeling garlic or dicing an onion—at least if they're the sorts of task that feel tedious and unpleasant. Skilled chefs have no trouble getting through these tasks quickly, but you don't necessarily have the time and devotion to master the culinary skill set required to do what they can do. In some cases it will take a lot of practice to prep your ingredients as fast as a professional. In other cases, you can learn in just a few minutes.

Learn a Few New Cooking and Baking Techniques

Successfully cooking something isn't too hard, but certain techniques can make an enormous difference in the quality of your food. Such is the case with the fickle egg, which if cooked right, can be pretty amazing. For more tender and flavorful meat, you'll want to learn sous-vide. For those of you who prefer to grill, we've got a guide to mastering you grilling skill set.

Cook Quickly and Easily in the Microwave

You may not look at your microwave as much of a cooking tool but, rather, just a reheating mechanism. While it's not going to replace your oven or stove, there's a lot it can do in the cooking and baking department. Also, for those times you're reheating food, there are several ways to do it better. But before you go off and microwave anything, know the best placement for your food.

If you're at all familiar with cooking in the microwave, you're probably aware of at least a few things you can make in a mug. Eggs and chocolate cake are two popular options. In the mug-less category, you can also make candy, potato chips, movie theater-caliber popcorn, and gourmet milk foam for your coffee (or whatever).

Microwaves, of course, were made for heating or reheating, not cooking, but they don't always leave food in the crispiest condition. There are ways around this. Parchment paper is one of them. When you're reheating pizza, for example, using a sheet of parchment paper will help keep it crispy. Microwaves are also great for restoring stale foods like chips and bread. Even if your food isn't stale, sometimes a few seconds in the microwave can help as well. This is the case with cheese, for example, as it helps bring out the flavor.

Although this is the case with anything in the kitchen, microwaves are especially prone to mess due to the way they reheat food. Fortunately there are quite a few tricks you can employ to keep the mess to a minimum, or at least clean it up easily when you can't. A damp coffee filter, two bowls, or even a shower cap are simple ways to stop the splatter. If things do get a little unruly, however, steam cleaning with vinegar can help you tame the mess a lot faster.